She is so supportive of new bloggers and she is the person who helped me so much when I first stepped into the blogosphere so I'm honoured to have her guest post on my blog. I've met her a couple of times and was fortunate enough to spend a good amount of quality time with her at the MAD Awards in September and she's a wonderful person.
Michelle makes no secret of the fact that she battles with blogging sometimes (as we all do) and she's great at giving advice about how to find a happy balance. Here, in her guest post she shows us her 5 Top Tips to Avoid Social Media Fatigue...
It is so easy to get burnt out in any part of your life. You find something new, enjoy it, get absorbed in it, make friends, find new avenues, overcommit yourself and before you know it, you feel completely burnt out and what was super fun before no longer is.
Balance is what it is all about; this is what I have discovered.
Blogging and other forms of social media, such as twitter and facebook are highly addictive and offer many false highs and you can become addicted to those. The buzz you get when the comments roll in or your visitor stats go up all give you that fleeting thrill but truly that is all it is – momentary. The next day fewer people visit your blog and it is easy to wonder why. Is my writing not so good today? Am I not as popular as I was? But of course it is not that, as just one person we are just a very small part of a massively growingblogsphere and loyalty is not something that is at the forefront of many bloggers and readers minds.
Blogging and other forms of social media, such as twitter and facebook are highly addictive and offer many false highs and you can become addicted to those. The buzz you get when the comments roll in or your visitor stats go up all give you that fleeting thrill but truly that is all it is – momentary. The next day fewer people visit your blog and it is easy to wonder why. Is my writing not so good today? Am I not as popular as I was? But of course it is not that, as just one person we are just a very small part of a massively growingblogsphere and loyalty is not something that is at the forefront of many bloggers and readers minds.
Most bloggers are out there seeking new blogs to read, searching for new material, trying to make a name forthemselves in a saturated market, perhaps chasing paid work or aiming to write a book. Everyone has different reasons for blogging and for a few it is to make solid friendships and those people will come back again and again to your blog but many people will just dip in and out and be acquaintances and this is nothing personal, that is the big thing to remember.
So as someone who has suffered social media fatigue a number of times in the last 3 years or so I thought I would share with you my 5 top tips for staying real –
1.
Accept that you are human and you have real life obligations. There is no point in getting resentful that you have to go to work or that you need to bath the kids, as you would rather be sat there chatting at a laptop. Yes it is fun to chat on twitter and to blog but if it was not for our real lives and our families what wouldwe have to talk about? Especially for those of us who are parent bloggers, the kids and our journey into parenthood were our inspiration to start a blog and they should remain at the very heart of it.
2.
The minute you feel you must blog or that blogging feels like hard work, take a break. Nip it in the bud if it seems that you are getting too attached to your blog. Being in the top 20 of any kind of ranking system or having an influence score of 60 or 70 does not define you. It does not make you a better person. From personal experience I can say that it may just make you feel sad and inadequate. Know what it is that you blog for and stay true to that.
3.
Don't make an idol of any other blogger. Some people are destined to do well with their blog, they have that natural talent and their writing is amazing. In every walk of life there are people who have that special je ne sais quoi and chances are if you do not effortlessly have it then you may never. I am not saying you will not be good or even great at what you choose to do but that special intangible quality that some people have just comes without effort. Imitating another blogger will leave you frustrated as you will never do what they do,quite as well as them. However, when you use your own original voice and are comfortable to reveal you, that iswhen you excel.
4.
Enjoy making friends and reading their blogs. I have been blogging a fair while but it is in the last year that I have developed some serious blogging friendships. People that I know I would wish to keep in touch with even if I never blogged again. When I feel down, these people get in contact with me and I love to come and visit their blogs and see what they are up to. You cannot be best friends with everyone, just accept it and work on the relationships that make you happiest. Hankering after being in the popular crowd is a sure way to feeling depressed.
5.
Set yourself a time limit. If you know that hanging around twitter for too long gets you down, don't do it. Come on the laptop and do what you need to do first and then visit twitter second (if you feel you must). If it is making you happy while you are there, stay, have fun. If not make sure you have given yourself a get-out clause and you know that after ½ hour (or so) you will switch off!
So there you go. These are the things that I keep in mind nowadays. When I start to feel unhappy in all things blogging and social media I come back to the reasons why I blog and I remember that I do not want to be the number 1 UK parenting blogger, I want to be someone who shares her faith, makes good friends and gives and receives love and support during tough times.
How about you? Do you know what you want from your blog? Is it time for a good hard think?
